Made more minor progress: Got the exhaust hooked up and some of the hoses installed. All of the wiring that doesn't connect to something on the upper intake is hooked up. The belt is on. The only reason I didn't put the upper intake on tonight is that I found a bad O-ring on the water pump bypass, so I couldn't install it, and it needs to go in before the intake. But digging through my box of parts for this project, I just now found a new one. With luck, in the morning I'll get the bypass and upper intake installed, then finish up the wiring harness.

Got the upper intake and coil pack installed. Ran the spark plug wires. Really all that's left on the engine itself are one electrical connector and some vacuum lines. But I can't figure out where they go, so I need to do some research.

Figured out the last electrical connector, though the remaining vacuum & coolant lines remain a mystery. I may need to go to the junkyard this weekend just to look at similar trucks and take pictures of the stuff I can't figure out.

Added the oil. It's not leaking yet, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

A friend came by today and helped me get the electric fans hooked up. Got the radiator in, and for a while I thought I hit another roadblock: The trans line fittings in the new radiator are smaller than the ones in my old radiator. Thought I might have to get some adapters, but I was able to swap the fittings from my old radiator to the new one.

The only thing preventing me from starting the engine is that I'm not 100% certain whether one hose on the intake is vacuum or coolant. Once I'm certain on that, I should be able to fire the truck.

The coolant hose situation (there are a ton of them) was baffling. The internet and the service manual were no help. After weeks of not being able to figure it out, I finally said berkeley it and drove the 2.5 hours to the Nashville junkyard because their site showed another truck just like this one. Drove up there today, took notes, drew pictures, picked up some other stuff while I was there and drove back. Rested for a bit until it cooled off, then hooked up all the lines, topped off the coolant and turned the key.

It cranked for several seconds, sputtered once, then came to life. Ticked for a bit, smoked or a bit, then that stopped. Let it run long enough to make sure the fans would come on--they did. No warning lights, no bad noises. There's some sort of coolant leak on the passenger side at the rear of the engine, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm happy that's the only problem.

Over the past couple weeks I've made a few small drives to the gas station, around the block, etc. just to feel everything out. Today was my first real trip in the truck, about 70 miles round trip to get it smogged, tagged, titled, and then to work and back. I was completely paranoid that:

I'd watch the oil pressure gauge drop to zero again.

The check engine light would come on 3 seconds before the smog test (automatic fail).

Or that without a tag, I'd get pulled over on the way to the emissions station.

None of that happened. Everything went well, and when I got home I changed the oil because my last major fear was that I screwed something up and I'd have a nice, frothy milkshake in the oil pan. But the oil looks good. I'm sure I'll be watching the gauges like a hawk and listening for funny engine noises for a while, but I think it's time to say that this is now less project and more truck, and it's time to do some truck stuff.

I feel as if I've done a fair amount of work to this truck, but it hasn't really looked that way from the outside. Today, this happened:

For a while now I knew I was probably going to add a camper shell. This one is an older Leer I found on CL. I think it was made for a Supercab, not a regular cab (the shape of the rear of hte roof is different). This gives me some secure, waterproof storage for larger items and gives me a little more versatility. The color obviously doesn't match, and it's not in perfect shape, but for the price I can't complain.

I had planned on getting a camper shell, but I hadn't planned on getting one yesterday--which meant I had to take it off to get a few other things done.

First: finally got around to installing my sliding rear window.

This took longer than I expected. I'd removed the necessary interior panels quite a while ago, but the old window sealant was like tar. Took a lot of effort to break its seal without breaking the glass. And rear window leaks are extremely common on these trucks, so cleaning the leftover gunk also took quite a bit of time.

Anyway, this meant I could finally reassemble the interior.

Pay no attention to the dome light dangling from the ceiling. An attempt to run power to the Navigator sun visors is going poorly (in that they don't work, and now neither do the dome light or radio).

When I bought the truck, it had a drop-in bedliner in pretty lousy condition. It was bad enough that I cut it up with a Sawzall and threw the pieces in the trash. But I didn't want a bare bed, and I saw mixed reviews of the DIY roll-in stuff, so today I got a spray-in liner done.

I opted for a Bullet Liner, which wasn't cheap but came with a lifetime warranty. Looks pretty good to me, too.